Annual "why is the final in Glasgow" thread

Do Royal's have fans on here ?

Other than Pat, LT, Spags... and the occasionally angry Chicken ... I don't expect many comments on here TBH mate 

Personally, I think the balance is just about right, as in ... North, Central and South.

I'm fine with it 

Ok, I’ll bite…

Here’s what I don’t understand about hosting one of the three finals in Glasgow…
The BBL clearly want 3 different locations, spread across the country to try and attract as much as the population as possible. Of course from a selfish point of view I’d like them all in London, but I accept that the BBL’s approach makes perfect sense.

London makes sense – hugely populated and the best transport connections in the country, you’ll get a lot of casual fans interested. Birmingham makes sense – not as well populated, but well connected transport wise to a large geographical area, so again you’ll get a lot of casual fans interested. Glasgow – hmmm, a comparatively small population and not well connected for a large geographical area, so not great for attracting casual fans.

My point is, wouldn’t the BBL have better success with substituting Glasgow with the likes of Manchester, Liverpool or Newcastle?

I can’t help but think the decision to go with Glasgow must be largest commercial – maybe the Emirates is cheap to hire (comparatively) and therefore doesn’t need to generate as much money in ticket sales to still be a commercial success. Which is fine. But if we’re looking at this in terms of which locations will help increase the popularity of the BBL I don’t think Glasgow once of the best choices.

I think one of the positives with the Emirates came from the BBL being asked to move to make way for the Davis cup previously. I *think* that gave them the leverage to negotiate future years bookings at a better rate (someone else may be able to confirm?).

Not sure Newcastle is particularly easy to get to compared with Glasgow, but can certainly understand your thinking with Manchester and Liverpool.

If the population of Glasgow and its surrounds (the number of people who could get into the centre of Glasgow in less than 40 minutes is well over a million) isn't enough to sustain a final then we're probably ****ed. Someone once mentioned that they felt the Trophy final wasn't marketed as well as the others. I tend to agree with that, and it may be part of the problem.

I’d forgotten about the whole ‘moving the date for the tennis’ thing. Thanks for the responses, they pretty much confirm the BBL host it there for financial reasons, not for attracting the most casual fans as possible.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when the current "deal" ends. I'd certainly be open to it being taken to other venues. What sorts of places would suit?

What would I swap the Emirates Arena with? SSE Wembley Arena, Copper Box Arena, ExCel Centre… Only joking.

I’d suggest somewhere like Sheffield Arena, Newcastle’s Metro Radio Arena, Manchester Arena or the Liverpool Echo Arena. Maybe Sheffield, Newcastle and Manchester would be best as they already have BBL teams that fans could easily ‘adopt’ (although that doesn’t stop the BBL using Birmingham). Basically anywhere ‘up north’ that has a bigger reach than Glasgow, of which there are a few places.
I honestly mean no disrespect to Glasgow or Scotland. I’m simply thinking of places that would attract the biggest crowd, if marketed right, and therefore have the best chance of growing the BBL’s following.

In all honesty, no I’ve never been (only Edinburgh a couple of times).

My logic, and maybe its flawed, is if you calculated how many people could get to Glasgow in less than an hour and compared it to how many people could get to Manchester (for example) in less than an hour you’d have a much larger potential crowd with Manchester. I’m not saying any of these cities are better or worse than Glasgow, just that they have a greater reach to help grow the BBL’s following.

Does it get played in the main hall or the usual Rocks spot?

It's the only decent basketball the people of Glasgow are likely to get this year too..

I don't think your logic is flawed as such but I'm not sure I'm fully on board. I guess my question would be how much of a catchment area do you feel we need to get a decent crowd? If the surrounds of Glasgow (which includes Edinburgh if we're going for an hour travel) isn't providing enough people then just how much do we need? 2 or 3 million?

That said, I'm in favour of taking it elsewhere anyway (possibly on a rotational basis) and the crowds are not impressive at the Emirates so there's certainly an argument for trying something else.

Hmm... "best transport connections in the country" - unless you're traveling from Scotland or likely anywhere north of Birmingham. Even HS2 (if it ever happens) won't change that.

Traveling to Glasgow from London is just as easy/hard as traveling to London from Glasgow. On that basis alone, we should host one of the finals outside of London/Birmingham.

Newcastle and Sheffield fans seem to manage to travel to Glasgow without problems, even for league games...